Simulating flow forming/spinning of as-cast aluminum at elevated temperature: example implicit & explicit FEA

<p>This collection of files largely automates the creation and running of FEA models of rotary forming at temperature. The modelling approaches are detailed further here:</p> <p>M.J. Roy, D.M. Maijer, Analysis and modelling of a rotary forming process for cast aluminium alloy A356, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 226, 2015, Pages 188-204, ISSN 0924-0136, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2015.06.036.<br>  </p> <p>Briefly, the multi-stage model was developed with MATLAB 7.2 and Abaqus 11.2 and configured to run on a Linux-based system with PBS functionality, last tested on a muti-node CentOS 5 system. The main script is <strong>FFauto.m</strong>, which will write input files and user subroutines and call <strong>FFauto_Abaqus11Submit.m</strong> to run the input files or intermediate post-processing to set up the next job. More specifically:</p> <ol> <li>FFauto will write an input deck based on 2D implicit heat transfer and then run it.</li> <li>Once the analysis is complete, it will perform some cursory post processing by writing an Abaqus Python script and then submitting that.</li> <li>Based on the post-processing of the implicit analysis, it will then generate a 3D explicit forming analysis input file. Depending on the operator's input, this can include an explicit cooling step as well.</li> <li>It will then submit the 3D analysis.</li> </ol> <p>Note that steps can be skipped - that is, if the results for an implicit heat transfer calculation are available, then it will use those results to generate the explicit step(s).</p> <p>Note that the implicit user subroutine *uhard.f contains a DFLUX subroutine in addition to the UHARD subroutine. This was not employed in the published work. Leave the <em>ArtHeat</em> variable as <em>True</em> to both speed up simulation times and get similar results as published.</p> <p>Running <strong>FFauto.m</strong> is accomplished by submitting the <strong>FFauto4.pbs</strong> file.</p>